TPP 407: Nutritionist Jill Castle on Helping Kids Thrive at Every Size
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
34 min
1 speaker
6 chapters
transcribed 15 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What inspired Jill Castle to write *Kids Thrive at Every Size* and how does it differ from typical nutrition books?
We are putting a lot of emphasis on food as the problem and as the solution. And in my experience, yes, it's one slice of the pie. But as I try to convey in my book, there are so many things that feed into food. your child's health and wellbeing? How much sleep they get? Is it quality sleep? How much time they spend in front of screens? And does that time take away their ability to move or to explore other interests? How much movement are kids getting? What's the family attitude about bodies? What are the family attitudes about food and eating? There's a lot of ingredients to this recipe for building a healthy child. And I think only focusing on food just short changes a lot of what parents and families can be doing out there to cultivate healthy kids who feel good about themselves.
I'm Debbie Reber and welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. So what comes to mind when you think about raising healthy kids? We often focus on physical health, things like height, weight, and nutrition. But today we're taking a more holistic look at health with return guest, nutritionist and author Jill Castle. Specifically, we're diving into our new book, Kids Thrive at Every Size, How to Nourish Your Big, Small, or In-Between Child for a Lifetime of Health and Happiness. In our conversation, we explore why emotional well-being is just as important as physical health, how the COVID pandemic has impacted kids' nutrition, and the often overlooked difference between feeding and eating.
Jill highlights how family culture and values shape a child's overall health and why it's so important to foster a body-neutral environment at home. We also touch on the connection between executive function and eating, plus the role screens and media play in shaping body image. Before we dive in a little bit about Jill, she's one of the nation's leading childhood nutrition experts, blending research with practical advice. She believes children can thrive at any size and challenges us to think differently about their health. Jill's the founder and CEO of The Nourished Child, a nutrition education platform, and the mother of four adultish kids. This conversation feels especially timely as our kids are being bombarded with messages about how their body should look and behave all the time.
Now more than ever, it's crucial to provide them with a strong foundation for understanding health. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jill Castle. Hey, Jill, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. It's great to be back. It's been a while since you were last on the show. We had a really good conversation about nutrition and listeners. There'll be a link in the show notes. Definitely go back and check that out. It's a really good conversation. We are here to talk about your new book, which is called Kids Thrive at Every Size. And as we were just discussing before we hit record, I said, this book isn't what I thought it was going to be necessarily. And you said, yeah, well, people are saying I thought it was going to be a book about nutrition.
And you said, well, nothing's just about nutrition anymore. So I would love to hear a little bit about your personal or professional or both evolution and how this book came to be in the forefront of your mind. And you're like, this is the book I have to get out into the world.
That's a great question. So I've worked with kids of larger size and smaller size and midsize my entire career of 33 plus years. And I think more recently since COVID, I've watched children experience in larger and smaller bodies experience more mental health concerns related to their bodies. But I've also watched the medical field evolve, or I guess I've recognized that over time, we have been focusing so much on physical health. And it's come, I believe, at the expense of emotional well-being. I kept noticing this and noticing this and then watching sort of this polarization of here's a psychological model for helping kids be healthy.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What inspired Jill Castle to write *Kids Thrive at Every Size* and how does it differ from typical nutrition books?
0:00–6:48
2
How does the Whole Child Healthy model integrate physical health with emotional well‑being?
6:48–13:09
3
What impact did COVID‑19 have on children’s eating habits and family nutrition routines?
13:09–19:49
4
Why is focusing solely on food problematic, and what other pillars of wellness should parents consider?
19:49–25:38
5
How do the eight pillars of wellness—especially feeding vs. eating—guide parents in daily practice?
25:38–30:40
6
What is the relationship between executive‑function development and a child’s eating behavior?
30:40–34:35
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids